Grapefruit & Sweet Toasted Walnut Salad

with Ginger Grapefruit Vinaigrette

I don’t know why, but the past two days, all I have wanted to eat was this salad. I need to make some soup, but I don’t really care … all I want is this green salad with pink, juicy grapefruit chunks and toasted sweet walnuts and this luscious vinaigrette. I could drown myself in it …

The first time I made it, I didn’t have any greens, so I had to go foraging in my lawn and what little is growing in my garden so far. I added the petals from a couple chrysanthemums too … since I was picking things …

The mums were lovely, but I completely forgot them the second time around. Because this time I had a big tub of organic spinach I found at the grocery store, so I didn’t have to go outside picking anything. And because the second time my son joined in in “helping” me prepare the grapefruit and before I knew it, we’d gone through 3 grapefruit and only one was left for my salad … because he pilfered all the rest … not that I mind … I love it when he revels in eating something healthy.

It reminded me of a different time and a different place when we used to have a grapefruit tree, so we would have “grapefruit festivals” … the kids and I would sit at the table and eat and eat and eat grapefruit to our heart’s content … and if we wanted more, we just ran out to the tree and picked a few more. This went on until we had each eaten 3 or 4 grapefruit. I’m not really sure how many we actually ate … it just seemed like the feasting went on and on and on. There was always a huge pile of rinds when we were done.

Grapefruit & Sweet Toasted Walnut Salad

Mixed greens or spinach

Grapefruit

Walnut pieces (just a couple tablespoons per serving)

Powdered sugar (maybe 1/3 cup?)

Cinnamon (not sure how much I used … 1/2 teaspoon? maybe more?)

Chrysanthemum petals (or fresh mint leaves … or you could just leave these out)

Ginger Grapefruit Vinaigrette (recipe below)

Directions:

Peel the grapefruit and section it like you would an orange, then pull off all the membrane. If you have any difficulty doing this with your fingers, use a knife. Make sure you have extra grapefruit if you have any others around that like to “help”.

Take the powdered sugar and mix it with some cinnamon (and maybe a bit of powdered ginger? of course this occurred to me AFTER we’ve eaten all the grapefruit in the house!), then dump your walnut pieces in. Use a colander or sifter to separate the nuts from the powdered sugar. Reserve the cinnamon sugar mixture for next time (or for powdering a dessert).

Put the nuts on a cooking sheet sprayed with cooking spray and bake for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees or until the nuts are brown on top.

In the meantime, put a big bunch of greens in the salad bowl and hide the grapefruit sections amongst the greens.

Sprinkle with the sweet toasted nuts and chrysanthemum petals (if you have them), then drizzle with a bit of the ginger grapefruit vinaigrette.

Ginger Grapefruit Vinaigrette

This makes a small amount, but you really don’t need much on the salad because it has a lot of flavor (but then, I’m a “light on the dressing” kind of person). If you want extra for future salads, double the recipe!

Sounds to me like more Sumptuous Perfection, dear Ann! I realized as soon as I saw the picture that I miss grapefruit! It’s almost as though I had completely forgotten about it, and that’s a crying shame! That has changed, thanks to you! Both my grandmother and mother were grapefruit fans, so much so that my crazy mother even had some silver grapefruit spoons. Beautiful, beautiful salad, Ann. One of these days you’ll have me practically living on salad, I hope :) xoxo

I have grapefruit spoons, but they aren’t silver. I’ve been a huge grapefruit fan for as long as I can remember. They are marvelous in a salad … and if I can get you living on salads (well, mostly), that would be a good thing, right?

I just love using Grapefruit in a salad. We get the best tasting Grapefruit from the Texas Valley, this will be a great recipe to try. Hope you are having a great week end and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen